Excerpt Of The Day: Jackie Mason On Mel And The Professional Grievance Monger

by John Hawkins | August 7, 2006 3:25 am

In the process of defending Mel Gibson, Jackie Mason accurately described a whole cottage industry in the United States these days: professional grievance mongers. Here’s Mason on Mel[1]:

“When Cavuto asked, “So you think a lot of this is jealousy?” Mason fumed: “Jealousy and hate, their contempt for a guy who’s doing too good! Also, this guy, [Abraham] Foxman, this head of the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] — another fake from top to bottom. I don’t talk about people; it’s not my nature. … He’s a total fake. … Let’s be honest about it — anybody who makes a life out of fighting racism in effect has to blow up racism in order to justify himself in his job he has. Otherwise he’d have to go to work. Otherwise he’d have to get up in the morning and get a real job.”

Noting that ABC has already cut plans to co-produce Gibson’s Holocaust special, Cavuto asked if Gibson is going to have “any ill effects from all of this in Hollywood?”

Said Mason: “He might have ill effects because people love burying a guy who’s big. If a guy on a bicycle breaks down, you cry for him. If he breaks down in a Rolls-Royce, you applaud. People make a living from fighting anti-Semitism — like Al Sharpton, or for fighting racism — they have to convince themselves there’s racism every place and that every minute they’re about to blow up every Jew in America, because otherwise he would have to go to work for a living. He fears a job a lot more than he fears anti-Semitism. Getting up in the morning is the main fear that Foxman has. And all of a sudden, he made himself the judge and the jury of this man?!”

When Cavuto asked, “Who was that rabbi who suggested maybe Mel Gibson should apologize to his congregation on Yom Kippur?” Mason shot back: “You know why? Because nobody knows who this rabbi is. Who cares who he is! All of a sudden he becomes a producer, all of a sudden he’s producing a show with him and Mel Gibson and he’ll become the star of the show and then you’ll see it in the newspapers: ‘STARRING RABBI SCHWARTZ WITH MEL GIBSON’ — he’ll probably get second billing because it’s another rabbi looking for attention. They decided — the judge and the jury of this whole situation — they’ve become a personal mafia now because who knows who they are? Who would pay attention to them? Foxman and this other guy are loving it.”